While reafon and religion, better taught,
Congratulate the dead, and crown his tomb
With wreath triumphant. Death is victory; 495
It binds in chains the raging ills of life:
Luft and ambition, wrath and avarice, -
Dragg'd at his chariot-wheel, applaud his power.
That ills corrofive, cares importunate,
Are not immortal too, O death! is thine.
Our day of diffolution !-name it right;
'Tis our great pay-day; 'tis our harvest, rich
And ripe what though the fickle, fometimes keen,
Juft fcars us as we reap the golden grain ?
More than thy balm, O Gilead! heals the wound. 505 ·
Birth's feeble cry, and death's deep difmal groan,
Are flender tributes low-tax'd nature pays
For mighty gain: the gain of each, a life!
But O! the laft the former so tranfcends,
́Life dies, compar'd; Life lives beyond the grave. 510
And feel I, death! no joy from thought of thee?
Death, the great counsellor, who man inspires
With every nobler thought, and fairer deed!
Death, the deliverer, who rescues man!
Death, the rewarder, who the rescued crowns! 515
Death, that abfolves my birth; a curfe without it!
Rich death, that realizes all my cares,
Toils, virtues, hopes; without it a chimera!
Death, of all pain the period, not of joy;
Joy's fource, and fubject, ftill fubfift unhurt;
One, in my foul; and one, in her great Sire;
Though the four winds were warring for my duft.
Yes, and from winds, and waves, and central night,
Though prifon'd there, my dust too I reclaim,
(To duft when drop proud nature's proudeft fpheres) 525
And live intire. Death is the crown of life:
Were death deny'd, poor man would live in vain;
Were death deny'd, to live would not be life;
Were death deny'd, ev'n fools would wish to die.
Death wounds to cure: we fall; we rife,, we reign! 530
Spring from our fetters; fasten in the skies;
Where blooming Eden withers in our fight:
Death gives us more than was in Eden lost.
This king of terrors is the prince of peace.
When shall I die to vanity, pain, death?
..When fhall I die 2-When fhall I live for ever?
Our only Cure for the Fear of Death; and proper Sentiments of that inestimable Blessing.
THE HONOURABLE MR. YORKE.
A Much-indebted Muse, O Yorke! intrudes.
Amid the fmiles of fortune, and of youth,
Thine ear is patient of a serious fong,
How deep implanted in the breast of man
The dread of death! I fing its fovereign cure.
Why ftart at death? Where is he? Death arriv'd, Is paft; not come or gone, he 's never here. Ere hope, fenfation fails; black-boding man Receives, not fuffers, death's tremendous blow. The knell, the shroud, the mattock, and the grave; 10 The deep damp vault, the darkness, and the worm ; These are the bugbears of a winter's eve,
The terrors of the living, not the dead.
Imagination's fool, and error's wretch,
Man makes a death, which nature never made;
Then on the point of his own fancy falls;
And feels a thousand deaths, in fearing one.
But were death frightful, what has age to fear?
If prudent, age fhould meet the friendly foe,
And shelter in his hofpitable gloom.
I scarce can meet a monument, but holds
My younger; every date cries" Come away.”
And what recalls me? Look the world around,
And tell me what: the wifeft cannot tell.
Should any born of women give his thought
Full range, on just dislike's unbounded field;
Of things, the vanity; of men, the flaws;
Flaws in the best; the many, flaw all o'er ;
As leopards, fpotted, or, as Ethiops, dark;
Vivacious ill; good dying immature;
(How immature, Narciffa's marble tells !)
And at his death bequeathing endless pain;
His heart, though bold, would ficken at the fight,
And spend itself in fighs, for furure scenes.
But grant to life (and juft it is to grant
To lucky life) fome perquifites of joy ;
A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale,
Long-rifled life of fweet can yield no more,
But from our comment on the comedy,
Pleafing reflections on parts well sustain'd,
Or purpofs'd emendations where we fail'd,
Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge,
When on their exit, fouls are bid unrobe,
Tofs fortune back her tinfel, and her plume,
And drop this mask of flesh behind the scene.
With me, that time is come; my world is dead;
A new world rises, and new manners reign:
Foreign comedians, a fpruce band! arrive,
To push me from the scene, or hiss me there,
What a pert race starts up! the strangers gaze,
And I at them; my neighbour is unknown;
Nor that the worst: Ah me! the dire effect
Of loitering here, of death defrauded long;
Of old fo gracious (and let that fuffice),
My very mafter knows me not.—
Shall I dare fay, peculiar is the fate?
I've been fo long remember'd, I'm forgot.
An object ever preffing dims the fight,
And hides behind its ardour to be seen.
When in his courtiers ears I pour my plaint,
They drink it as the nectar of the great;
And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow.
Refufal! canft thou wear a smoother form?
Indulge me, nor conceive I drop my theme:
Who cheapens life, abates the Fear of Death:
Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy,
Court favour, yet untaken, I befiege;
Ambition's ill-judg'd effort to be rich.
Alas! amition makes my little less;
Embittering the poffeft: Why wish for more?
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst;
Philofophy's reverse; and health's decay!
Were I as plump as ftall'd theology,
Wishing would waste me to this fhade again.
Were I as wealthy as a South-fea dream,
Wishing is an expedient to be poor.
Wifhing, that conftant hectic of a fool;
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